Стефани Перри: Zero Hour

He smiled, relishing their mute awe, enjoying his moment in the sun of their wonder. “So, you are correct. I am Marcus, but I'm also Marcus's son, and grandson—and every other extension, all other offspring, the union between Marcus and his queen. My queen. She lives inside of me. She sings to her children.”

At the intensity of his joy, his triumph, the children surged toward him, swam up his legs, tickled their way across his most familiar form, that of James Marcus. He reveled in the feeling, laughing aloud at the revulsion that crossed the faces of his two young guests. If only they knew! The phenomenal rapture he felt as part of the hive, its leader and follower—Marcus's death had freed him, had made him far greater than his human life ever would have allowed.

“I scattered the virus,” he said. “The world will know, now, what Umbrella has done. What Spencer and his stupid greed have contrived. Umbrella will burn, but Marcus will be hailed as a god for what he created. I am the archetype of a new man, far superior to the lonely pattern of humanity; the world will seek me out, will beg to join the hive, to unite as one mind, one all-powerful being!”

The man, Billy, spoke again, his face curled in loathing, his voice tight with it. “You're dreaming. You're a sick, twisted freak, whatever you are—and the world will seek you out, but only to kill you, to put an end to your insane delusions!”

Such a fool, so self-righteous in his own stupidity! A great anger rose in him, in the children, tainting his joy. He could feel his body quake with it. “We'll see who's going to die,” he said, his voice trembling with anger—

—but it was no longer Marcus's voice, he had be-come the young man again, the children's vision of Marcus as a youth. He frowned, not sure why he had changed, or how—he had not wished it, had not sung or willed the shift in form.

The children swept through him, swollen with his anger, ignoring his inner commands, and for the first time since he'd crawled from the pool only a few months ago, since the hive had given him his new life, he had no control over it. The many would not listen, wanted only to smite the intruders, to squash them.

The young man felt them rising to his throat, spilling out like bile, choking him. He tried to hold on, to exert his influence, but the anger was too big, too all-encompassing. He was changing, becoming something entirely new, and his struggle for domination was washed aside, lost to this new thing.

The queen! He could feel her consciousness filling him, her creative power surging forth, carried by the children to every part of his metamorphosing form. She wanted to kill, to destroy the two humans who dared to judge her, and she was far stronger than even he had imagined.

The thing that had once been Marcus had no choice but to surrender, to become the most powerful player of all. To become the queen.

Marcus started to change once more, in a way that seemed to surprise him as much as it surprised Billy. Leeches began to pour from his mouth, gagging him, dozens of them sliding out in a rush of slime, hitting the floor like fat raindrops. The young man's eyes were wide, his expression one of disbelief as he continued to choke out the slick fall of leeches.

As soon as they hit the floor, the creatures rushed back to the young man, swarming up his body, attaching themselves, burrowing into him. Round shapes moved beneath his skin, tunneling, changing the shape and texture of his flesh. His clothes melted away as the leeches continued to swarm, giving his body a strangely rubbery appearance, his arms and legs starting to look like great masses of fat worms twined together. His face elongated, stretching, the skin tearing to expose ribbed striations of purplish muscle tissue, throbbing, turning thick and wet with goo.

Next to him, Rebecca drew a sharp breath as the Marcus-creature lost its human appearance entirely, its whole body made up of those fat worms now, stuck together by dripping webs of clear slime. It grew in size as well, the leeches near it joining the multitude, adding mass and height. Long, stringy tentacles shot up from its back, whipping around like streamers in a high wind, the color of inflammation, of infection.

“The queen,” Rebecca breathed. “She's taking control.”

Billy pointed the Magnum at the growing creature—

—and the thing flew upward, leaping straight into the air. It hit the ceiling with a huge, wet smacking sound and clung there a moment, dribbling thick fluids to the floor far below. Except for having four limbs, it no longer looked remotely human.

Billy fired at the ceiling but it was already gone, dropping to the floor in front of them, condensing slightly as it hit the ground like some giant rubber toy. It— she—stretched out again, towering over him and Rebecca, those dark tentacles snapping around toward them, reaching for them.

He and Rebecca both stumbled back. Billy felt his boots sliding as he stepped on any number of the leeches that still covered the floor, heard the soft, fat pop of each creature beneath his heels. Rebecca grabbed his arm, almost falling as she, too, slipped across the blanket of leech bodies.

The deaths of her ghastly children had an immediate effect. The leech queen pulled her tentacles back and let out a scream, a strange, high, warbling wail like nothing on earth, a sound made all the more horrible by its complete alienness. All of the leeches in the room started toward her at once, moving away from Rebecca and Billy, clearing a path from beneath and behind their killing footsteps.

The leech queen continued to grow as the small bodies packed on, joining together with the core creature, her size almost doubled in less than a minute. Billy shot a look over his shoulder, saw that they were going to dead-end back at the door they entered by if they let the monster choose their path, in the most literal sense of the word.

At the room's south side was a closed door set into a kind of recessed entryway. There was a sea of leeches separating them from it, but the sea was on the move, flowing toward the growing Marcus-queen monster. She seemed oblivious to their presence as she packed on more of her hive, swelling to gargantuan size in a soft, sloshing whisper of liquid movement.

“South door,” Billy said, keeping his voice low as they continued to slowly back away. They had to act now, fast, or their chance would be gone.

“If it's locked?” Rebecca whispered back.

“Gotta risk it,” he said. “I'll cover. On three. One ... two ... three!”

Rebecca broke and ran as Billy opened fire, pouring rounds into the giant, bloated body of the queen. She screamed, her high wail taking on depths of pain, of hate, and shot a handful of tentacles at him, the appendages moving lightning quick.

They grabbed him, lifted him into the air. Billy lost the Magnum, couldn't get to his handgun as he was wildly shaken, his head snapping back and forth, his arms pinned by the creature's brute strength. Her tentacles curled around his chest, tightening like a vise, squeezing so hard that he couldn't draw breath. After only a few seconds, he could feel himself blacking out, the shaking world fading to brilliant spots of darting black.

He heard the sound of the shotgun—and the monster was screaming again, dropping him, spinning around to face her new attacker. Billy crashed to the floor. He ignored the pain, scrambled for the Magnum as a hundred leeches crawled toward him, as Rebecca fired again and the monster started for her, tentacles lashing all around.

Billy got to his feet, saw that Rebecca had her back turned. The second blast hadn't been aimed at the monster at all, but at a standing control console next to the south door. She fired again, kicking at the door at the same time. It flew open, but the queen was almost upon her, easily twice her height, heavier by far, she'll rip her apart like a paper doll—